In this issue:

  BioSecurity 2003 to spotlight infectious disease control, agro-terrorism

   HMI and AGA Linde Healthcare to award funding to support gas-enabled medical innovations

  AMIDEAST lets Cyprus surgeon see new techniques at Children’s Hospital

  Disaster response manual now available

  Harold M. English research fellow announced

 BeST Resident now available as three-month ABSITE prep package

 

BioSecurity 2003 to spotlight infectious disease control, agro-terrorism
For the second straight year, Harvard Medical International is developing the educational program for an international forum that allows officials in the areas of government, defense, science and technology, public health, academia,

Academic and research leaders  

 Agriculture and environmental scientists

Biopharmaceutical scientists  

 Communications specialists

Corporate security officers  

 First responders

Global health organizations  

 Government leaders

Healthcare professionals  

 Hospital administrators

Information systems professionals  

 Law enforcement professionals
 Military and intelligence professionals

Public health officials  

 Veterinarians

BioSecurity 2003 is sponsored by Harvard Medical School, Harvard Medical International, and Harvard School of Public Health, supported by the RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security, and produced by MediaLive International Events, Inc. For more information, please visit the website at www.biosecuritysummit.com.

HMI and AGA Linde Healthcare to award funding to support gas-enabled medical innovations
AGA Linde Healthcare, in cooperation with Harvard Medical International and the Karolinska Institutet of Sweden, has founded a new research fund to support scientists in the emerging field of gas-enabled medicine. The GEMI Fund—which stands for Gas-Enabled Medical Innovations Fund—will distribute $1 million every two years. The first such grants will be awarded during a ceremony in Boston on October 23, 2003.

“Gas-enabled medicine is a relatively untapped area of medicine, but explorations in this area have already yielded significant results,” said Dr. Robert K. Crone, president and CEO of HMI, who serves on the board of the GEMI Fund. In 1998, three researchers in the United States shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery that nitric oxide can act as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. The first regulatory approval (to market a medical substance) for a pharmaceutical gas was given by the FDA in the United States in 1999 and by EMEA in Europe in 2001. It approved the use of inhaled nitric oxide for the treatment of certain newborns with hypoxic respiratory failure, so-called blue babies. Today, scientists continue to investigate other possible uses of nitric oxide, as well as carbon monoxide, in medical treatment. “As a pediatric intensivist and anesthesiologist who has been involved with medical gases my entire professional life, it is personally gratifying to me to be able to participate in a program that holds great potential for advancing medicine,” said Crone.

AGA Linde Healthcare reports that approximately two hundred researchers representing more than fifty projects submitted applications for the GEMI Fund grant. According to Rolf Petersen, administrative secretary of the GEMI Fund Board and director of Product Search and Development at AGA Linde Healthcare, applications came in from all over the world, but the most represented countries were U.S.A., Sweden, Germany, and Norway. Nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen, and xenon were the gases most frequently cited in applications, and the majority of applicants came from the fields of anesthesia, intensive/critical care, clinical/basic physiology, and pneumonology.

AGA Linde Healthcare, which has over 1300 employees in 32 countries, was created when the German Linde Group acquired the Swedish gas company AGA in 2000. The company is focused on providing therapies and diagnostics for the hospital and home. To learn more about the GEMI Fund, visit the website.

AMIDEAST lets Cyprus surgeon see new techniques at Children’s Hospital

Dr. Efthymios Tsivitanides (right) visited HMI at the end of his stay and talked about his experiences with Dr. Mitchell Spellman, HMI director of academic alliances and international exchange programs.

Dr. Efthymios Tsivitanides of Cyprus is the most recent “learner-observer” to benefit from HMI’s relationship with America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, Inc. (AMIDEAST), a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote understanding and cooperation between the Americas and the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. The 45-year-old pediatric surgeon spent the month of June in the Department of Surgery at Children’s Hospital in Boston under the mentorship of Dr. Robert C. Shamberger, HMS professor of surgery and head of the Department of Surgery at Children’s Hospital. He was sponsored by the Cyprus-America Scholarship Program (CASP), an international training project administered by AMIDEAST.

According to Dr. Mitchell Spellman, HMI director, Tsivitanides’s four-week stay was focused on studying advances in the diagnosis, management, and treatment of a number of thoracic diseases and disorders found in children. Although learner-observers administered by the AMIDEAST program do not take part in the direct care of patients, their exposure to both new methods and technological advances prepares them to contribute to the ongoing development of their home institutions—in this case, the pediatric intensive care unit of Markarios Hospital in Nicosia, Cyprus.

At the end of his stay, Dr. Tsvitanides reflected upon his experience. “I saw many techniques that are simpler and easier to perform than older ones,” he said. “The experience opened my eyes to the possibilities of creating new techniques.” Tsvitanides studied targeted advances in thoracic surgery, lung dissections, and, perhaps most noteworthy, observed an uncommonly performed segmental (tracheal) resection for the correction of congenital tracheal stenosis. Some of the technologies and procedures observed at Children’s Hospital will require new equipment for application in Makarios Hospital. Tsvitanides, sounding every bit the optimistic surgeon, is confident that he will be able to introduce the innovations and apply the new knowledge in Cyprus, with the assurance that “this knowledge will be used for the benefit of the people of Cyprus.”

Since 1999, HMI has worked with AMIDEAST to place health care professionals into the Harvard medical institutions. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, CASP’s mission is to strengthen human resource development in Cyprus by providing short-term training for mid-career professionals. Although CASP funds a wide range of training programs, by far the largest number of grants has been awarded in the fields of medicine and medical technology. Generally, the recipients spend one to two months in selected academic medical centers, and are provided access to the same resources and facilities as other sponsored learner-observers. Sara Weidemeyer, Senior Program Officer for AMIDEAST, said, “HMI has been an excellent partner in helping AMIDEAST pair physicians with U.S. counterparts who are at the top of their field.”

Disaster response manual now available

Mass Casualty Incident Management

Incident Command Structure

Medical Response to Disasters

 Weapons of Mass Destruction

Public Health Response to Disasters

Decontamination

Medical Response to Terrorism

Care of Specific Injuries in Disasters

Environmental Considerations

Special Considerations (includes Psychological Aspects of Disasters    and Care of the Dead and their Families)

Funding for Advanced Disaster Medical Response was generously provided by the Flatley Company in honor of the late Thomas Durant, MD, humanitarian and Harvard Medical School professor of surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Single copies may be purchased through Amazon, or through Professional Books at www.professionalbooks.com.For information about volume discounts, please email briggs.susan@mgh.harvard.edu. For information about disaster preparedness training workshops, please email hmi@hms.harvard.edu.

Harold M. English research fellow announced
Fabrice Schneider, M.D., a young French physician specializing in vascular surgery, has been appointed the Harold M. English Research Fellow in Cardiology for the period beginning November 1, 2003 to October 31, 2005. Dr. Schneider, who is the fourth person to be awarded the fellowship, will spend two years in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Libby. This fellowship, established in 1992, is administered by the Mission Interuniversitaire de Coordination des Échanges Franco-Américianes (MICEFA) in conjunction with Harvard Medical International and the affiliated institutions of Harvard Medical School (HMS). The program is designed to promote collaboration between HMS, l’Academie Nationale de Médecine de Paris, and the Faculty de Médecine de Paris, France. Funding for this award comes from the Harold M. English Memorial Fund, established in 1984 at the bequest of Hermine English in memory of her husband.

BeST Resident now available as three-month ABSITE prep package
For the first time, individual residents can purchase Harvard Medical International’s online general surgery training program, BeST Resident, as a three-month subscription to prepare for the ABSITE. Previously, BeST Resident was only available as a 12-month subscription for program directors to purchase.

BeST Resident provides 180 hours of online interactive general surgicaltraining. It includes interactive case studies and ABSITE-format multiple-choice questions that provide feedback and guide further review. The easy-to-use Progress Report feature allows residents to track their progress and evaluate their knowledge online.

In addition, the three-month subscription includes access to HMI’s database of 400 ABSITE-style questions. “Residents tell us they find the program very helpful for preparing for the ABSITE,” says Peta Gillyatt, HMI product development manager. “The new three-month subscription is designed to make BeST Resident more accessible to residents just in time to prepare for the in-service exam.”

Said one resident from Washington University, the program “was very useful for reviewing the basics of general surgery. The chapters were concise and easy to follow. The diagrams and flow charts were especially well designed.”

BeST Resident is also available for purchase by program directors as a three-month or one-year subscription. The Knowledge Reporter allows program directors to keep track of their residents’ progress and evaluate them online.

The award-wining BeST Resident was produced by Harvard Medical International, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and Intuition, an e-learning publishing company. The three-month subscription rate is $225. For a demo of BeST Resident, visit http://besttrial.intumed.com and click “BeST Virtual Tour.” For more information or to purchase BeST Resident, email elearning@hms.harvard.edu.

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